Eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood?

³⁵ And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. ³⁶ But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. ³⁷ All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. ³⁹ This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. ⁴⁰ And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6.35-40

Verses 51- 60, just to conclude, he speaks about the implications of eating the flesh of Jesus. This is one of the interesting and difficult things which John says in his scripture.

Here, he is talking about an experience by which you have to eat His flesh and drink His blood. What does he mean by this?

He’s talking about a spiritual experience. When you come to God, He is going to give His flesh for the life of the world which is what actually happened at the Cross. It happened because Jesus was the Passover Lamb taking upon Himself the sin of the world.

Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, ² “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. ³ Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ⁶ Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. ⁷ And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. ⁸ Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails. ¹⁰ You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. ¹¹ And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

¹² ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. ¹³ Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Exodus 12:1-13

He says that you need to understand this in a spiritual way.

⁴⁷ Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. ⁵⁰ This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

⁵² The Jews therefore quarrelled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”

⁵³ Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. ⁵⁶ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

⁵⁹ These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. ⁶⁰ Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” John 6:47-60

Now His listeners are still in the physical, material dimension. They say, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat’. He says, the only way you can have spiritual life is by eating my flesh and drinking my blood. Verse 51

⁵¹ I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

And verse 53,

⁵³ … “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.”

This is an interesting passage. What does Jesus mean? Does He mean that you have to literally eat His physical flesh and drink His blood? That would be a very weird sort of doctrine, wouldn’t it? It would involve some kind of cannibalism even. In fact, some early Christians were accused of cannibalism on the basis of this scripture.

But clearly, He’s not talking about is eating His literal flesh and drinking His literal blood. Jesus is speaking about something which should be understood spiritually, not physically. Just like He was talking to Nicodemus about being born again, and Nicodemus said, ‘Shall I go back into my mother’s womb and be born again?‘ Jesus answered him, ‘No, you can’t, I’m talking about something spiritual, you must be born again spiritually.’

³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

⁴ Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. John 3:3-5

Here He’s not speaking literally about us eating His flesh and drinking his blood, but about a spiritual experience of communing with the Lord, feeding on Him, receiving His very essence into your essence so that you have something of God in you through faith in Jesus the Messiah.

¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

¹² “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?” Deuteronomy 10:11-13

And to do this you have to understand the meaning of His life, His death, and His resurrection, that Jesus was made flesh to dwell amongst us, and that He is the Word of God made flesh who, at the Cross, became the final sacrifice for the sin of the world that He might redeem us.

¹¹ For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ Leviticus 17:11

So, eating and drinking His flesh means identifying with His sacrifice for the sin of the world. Believing on the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Lord, receiving His salvation, His eternal life into our mortal life.

He says that ‘If you do this, you’re going to live forever in heaven with God, and you’ll be His redeemed children.‘

⁵⁴ Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Now, if you know anything about church history, you may know that these verses have been the mainstay of the Roman Catholic doctrine, of what they call transubstantiation which was incorporated into their mass which is celebrated by Roman Catholics according to the concept that Jesus needs to be sacrificed continually through the mass, and that the Roman Catholic priest has the power to change the bread and the wine into the literal the body (flesh) and blood of Jesus.

According to the Roman Catholic catechism,

And, in one its articles, it says,

Okay, so if you come from a Roman Catholic background, you know what I’m talking about. Roman Catholicism believes that, literally, when you take the bread and the wine, that bread and that wine are transformed into the literal body of Jesus by the priest saying these words over it “Hoc est enim corpus meum“, which the Protestants mocked as being ‘Hocus Pocus’. But that’s another story.

Their congregations don’t take the wine, only the priest takes the wine so, they don’t actually follow through on the whole thing. As a catholic, you just take the bread but not the wine, which means their liturgy is not actually fulfilling the Word of Jesus.

Clearly, that is not what it means. You can’t change that bread and wine into the literal body of Jesus. It’s impossible. And when Jesus said these words – which he did say when He gave the true doctrine about what the bread and the wine mean, He said as we have already read,

²⁶ And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

²⁷ Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. ²⁸ For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. ²⁹ But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”

³⁰ And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Matthew 26:26-30

Jesus stood there; He had matzah in His hand and He said,

“Take, eat; this is My body.”

But His body was standing before them. So, obviously, He meant ‘this matzah represents my body’. He said ‘this matzah is my body, it represents my body and, if future generations, do this to remember me by breaking bread to remind yourself of what I did for you on the Cross‘.

It’s obvious that He’s not talking about it literally ‘being my body’ and so, to also reinforce this point, it was at the time of the Passover. If you know what happens at a Jewish Passover, they take bread (matzah bread) to remind themselves of the Exodus from Egypt, and they eat the bread which is a reminder of what happened when the Israelites came out of Egypt. No Jewish person would ever think that such bread literally becomes the bread which they had when they came out of Egypt. It’s a reminder, it’s a representation of it.

That is what Jesus is saying, ‘The same thing you do with the bread which you eat at the Passover at the at the Eucharist or Communion is a reminder of what Jesus did for you on the Cross.

Therefore, the Roman Catholic position is actually false and based upon this scripture which is a scripture that has nothing to do with Jesus teaching about the breaking of bread service we’ve just had today, it’s all about Jesus explaining to His disciples the meaning of the giving of the bread.

So, you can forget totally about what the Roman Catholics say that this is speaking about something spiritual we must understand.

We have this additional objection which says that doing this is not possible and that it is a hard saying. Verse 60 says,

⁶⁰ Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

And some people begin to leave Jesus, and Jesus knew Himself that His disciples complained about this. So, He says to them,

⁶¹ … “Does this offend you? ⁶² What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? ⁶³ It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. ⁶⁴ But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. ⁶⁵ And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

⁶⁶ From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. ⁶⁷ Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

⁶⁸ But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

⁷⁰ Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” ⁷¹ He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve. John 6:61-71

There are people listening to Jesus. Who are those offended by what he said? They can’t understand it. There are sometimes when Jesus says things which we can’t understand, and there are things in the Bible which we can’t understand.

Jesus says to us ‘Don’t give up when you can’t understand something, but seek trying to understand it,

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

Sometimes, you have to dig a bit deeper than just reading it in a superficial way. You have to seek God, and ask what it means, and not give up. If you find something which you can’t understand, ask the Lord. You can ask me. I can perhaps explain it to you, but certainly, everything in the Bible can make sense if you look into it.

But they says ‘It’s a hard saying’, you’re going to go away. And He says to them ‘don’t go away you’re going to see things in the future days’. The Son of man is going to ascend to heaven where He came from. He’s going to give you the Spirit, and it’s the Spirit He is going to give you life.

⁶³ It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

That is the truth which John is trying to get across to us here, that Jesus’ Word is Spirit and Life to us. If you want to feed on the Word of God, it is going to give you spiritual life. That is the whole point of what Jesus is saying in this passage here: ‘Feed on me feed, on my Word‘. Learn from that and grow in your faith in Jesus the Messiah.

There are some people who still go away. In verse 66 it says,

⁶⁶ From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

It is a very sad thing when people go away from the Lord. Perhaps they haven’t really understood it in the first place. But don’t go away. And, if things are difficult in your life, don’t go away, don’t give up. Those should be times to call even more on the Name of the Lord, and draw close to Him.

There are things you don’t understand about the faith. Don’t give up. Search for the answers, look for them. There are always answers and those words which we’re going to close are what Jesus said to the 12 disciples:

⁶⁷ Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

⁶⁸ But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

There is no one else who can give you eternal life. The world can’t give it to you, other religions can’t give it to you. Only Jesus can give you eternal life because because He is the only One who has the words of eternal life.

So, believe in Jesus, put your trust in Him, make your decision now and, if you haven’t made that decision, do make it now because now is the day of salvation.

Learn from the Lord and grow in Him that we might all grow together into one family in God, fed by the Word of God, believing in Jesus.

Nothing can separate us from that love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, amen.

Let’s just have a word of prayer.

Lord, we thank you for your Word. We thank you that it is truth. We thank you that, Lord, we can believe in you. We thank you Lord for all that you’ve done for us. We thank you for all that you’ve taught us through your Word.

Help us Lord to receive your Word, and to believe your Word, and to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Lord, I pray that you’d reach out to anybody here who has any doubts, any fears, who has any questions they want to ask. Lord, that they may find the answer and, above all, that anybody who is listening to me now who has not yet committed themselves to Jesus the Messiah may do so and put their trust in you and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and eternal life. In Jesus’ Name, amen. Amen